Overnight Trip to Mantralayam

LINK TO FULL MANTRALAYAM PHOTO ALBUM

Today we left Bangalore at 6am to take an overnight trip to Mantralayam. This town is about six hours north of Bangalore in Andhra Pradesh. We stopped for some coffee at a roadside fast food restaurant.




An interesting site along the way.


On the way, we stopped at a small Hindu temple in Chippagiri. Sri Vijay dasaru lived here because he loved the serenity of this place. I have to agree - it was just so quiet and calming.


This is where devotees stay when they travel here.






Abhay's family has helped to build a function hall here for the temple.




Lunch.




The cutest little boy. He is the grandson of a couple of lives here at the temple to help care for it.


On the road again we encountered some interesting sites.






We arrived into Montralayam late in the evening.


It is the site of the Hindu Temple, Sri Raghavendra Swami Brindavan. This is where Sri Raghavendra Swami, who lived in the 16th century, placed himself inside a small enclosure called a Brindavana and while was still alive had the enclosure sealed around him. He remains in the Brindavana to this day where a temple has been built around it and thousands of followers make the journey to this site every year.

I didn't take too many pictures inside the temple at first because I wasn't sure if it was proper - but I got this which shows the covered area around the core of the temple.


At this temple, it struck me that some of the most amazing cultural artifacts are not located behind glass in museums – they are in fact still in use by the communities that cherish these items. These are a pair of pure gold sandals worn by Sri Raghavendra Swami and they are used in a ceremony daily in his honor. http://www.mantralayam.com/pop2.htm Also, you can see these chariots used on a daily basis to carry the statues of the Gods around the temple. One is made of pure gold and the other pure silver. These items were beyond compare in their artistic detail and high quality craftsmanship. I’m sure they would be a prize piece for any museum collection, however to me, it seems as if their splendor is much more appreciated in these humble surroundings